good morning everyone that's my name's Bob rittenau your Town Administrator here in Yarmouth um I I'd like to welcome everyone here this morning and my gosh this is the most beautiful day we've had all summer the humidity is down I I just can't imagine a more beautiful day and this is a very auspicious day for the town of Yarmouth and for our entire Community I I really want to say and obviously the reason for that is we're here to rededicate our Town's Memorial to the veterans who have made that Supreme sacrifice in foreign theaters in defense of the freedoms that that we all enjoy this wonderful new Memorial that's been completely redone for the town now in doing so I think it's very important to note that we also honor the memory of our most recent casualty Nicholas zaros who made the Supreme sacrifice in defense of our nation in Afghanistan on July 23 2009 you see this lovely restoration project that we have right here behind me was spearheaded by Nick's family and Steven zaros through the nickol G zaros memorial fund and the big Nicks ride for the Fallen along with all of the generous volunteer donations by several wonderful local businesses that we're going to hear a little bit about a little more this morning so please wait for that as you can see just looking around you this restoration turned out absolutely beautifully and we are incredi grateful as a community to the entire town not only for the service of these Heroes that we honor on this Stone whose names are carved here for the ages behind us but also and I think more importantly for for today the wonderful outpouring of community spirit that has brought us here through the leadership of the zaros fund the entire Community has been brought together to recognize the things that we hold dear and what is so important about our community and in doing that if you look around and you see you know the beautiful surroundings that you have around our town hall I think it's very important also to recognize the Rotary Club Jim Seymour all of the efforts Kurt Sears for the work on the Memorial Gardens that the Rotary Club made maintains on a daily basis and just look at our Our Town Hall facility those beautiful beds the way this place is landscaped by the Yarmouth public works department facilities team with Roby White House here I I think it's I think it's tremendous and it just shows the pride that we have in our community we have a wonderful outpouring folks that are here there's so many dignitaries I can't mention Everyone by name our all of our legislative delegation being here good morning General thank you for attending It just strikes a chord in in your heart that the question of how is it that those from which so much has been taken have so much continued giving that we received from them and and that that is just something that's that's truly remarkable about our community and and we're truly honored so with that what what I would like to do is I would like to invite Chaplin David aen to join us up here for an invitation good morning let us pray Lord we offer thanks and praise for this beautiful site constructed to pay homage to those who have given all that we may gather here in Freedom Lord guide our country during these precarious times and lastly let us never forget those who have made the Supreme sacrifice on our behalf we pray Lord keep us safe and help us work and pray for peace in our world Amen thank you chaplain and I hope everyone can join me now with this lovely Memorial and we have the beautiful flags flying for the Pledge of Allegiance stand veterans May salute everyone else hand over your heart let's do it uned States I want to take a moment to recognize our select board here in Yarmouth who provides the all of the wonderful leadership of every single one of projects that we do we we have both of our our newest elected select board members um here with us today I recognize Joyce Flynn and and I I'd like to invite select person Tracy Post up to have some words on behalf of our select board Tracy thank you Bob it's an honor to be here um I don't have any prepared comments for today other than to just give thanks um thanks to everybody involved in this project it's um it's certainly a community effort and um as a wife of a veteran and a mother of a veteran um but for the grace of God go I okay um what what the xaros family has done um is to keep Nick's name alive and it's been his mission and things like that help to Aid in in moving that forward and keeping his memory alive um I remember the day very well in the gym at the high school and I'm sure to you it seems like yesterday and sometimes it seems like many many years and sometimes probably decades to you um to the loss of a child uh we have many many veterans in our community we're very proud um there are only because of efforts like this I know I fought very hard to have that one sign put there for veteran parking and that was donated by a business so our business Community is uh always very helpful and um we're just very very grateful and I just want to thank everybody on behalf of the select board for all that you do Steve and uh for your loss and talk about the support that we've had from the business Community the wonderful outpouring of community donations to make projects like this happen I I'd like to invite up Eric Cooper local business person who's one of the key Volunteers in this whole program and making this happen and we'd like to hear we'd like to hear a little bit from Eric come on up Eric well speaking today is definitely a surprise I wasn't aware of the fact but I do appreciate the opportunity uh I'm extremely honored to be a part of this um I take great pride in it I take great pride in Yarmouth um I love the xaras family I do believe when Steve started at school as his resource officer I was a Dy student um and he had hair um I only had to maybe meet with him a few times about some things but that's about it but I am extremely proud uh to be a part of this um it gives me great pride and I there was so so many people that I asked to help and without hesitation um you know and some of those people are here today the child's family are here um no hesitation at all whatever you need Stonewood Products uh gave us a ton of products um Phil Cheney back there um landscape architect designer we met here two years ago um with this concept and uh here we are today um and I really appreciate everybody's efforts and I'm really proud to be a part of this thank you thank you Eric he's so modest isn't he this is a tremendous amount of work it's very very much appreciated everyone who had a part of this so for the meat of our program I'd like to invite up the remarkable deputy chief retired state Representative Steven zaros for some words come on up Stephen thank you uh Town Administrator everyone um there's a lot so 15 years ago on Tuesday we received the horrible news and it was uh David aen that helped strengthen our family in the worst moment of our lives and he's still here today helping us so thank you chaplain akchen God bless you a veteran you stood by our side and you created a family I would like to call up my family Alex can you come on up uh John and Joyce please come on up anyone else in the xaros Gold Star Family if you can come on up and anyone that is a veteran come on up please if you're a veteran you belong up here with us Mr child yes these are the heroes amongst us these men and women and all of us as family have fought for freedom and freedom comes at a price and here we are on this beautiful Friday we red Friday and uh we're standing on a fallen heroes Memorial and my son's name is on it so sometimes it's feels like yesterday as Tracy said and sometimes it feels like a hundred years ago it's a big burden um I proudly served as a police officer wearing my body armor and and the yth police patch and my American flag on my shoulder uh proud to be a state representative in the fight fifth Barnstable District I love it I'll be in the people's house in about 3 hours but my most important role is to be a good father and to be a good American and to to live a life worthy of the sacrifices Made For Freedom not only those that have died but really just as are more important for the ones that made it home we love you all we respect you um we honor you that's what big Nicks ride does it starts this weekend so it's perfect that we were able to do this today and I got to thank Eric Cooper who was yes a student at Dy he stayed by our side through the loss of a fallen Native Son and Eric Cooper quarterbacked this whole beautiful monument and um there's something special about him and there's something speci special while being in Yarmouth and I see representative Chris Flanigan we get to work together in Boston we'll be together this afternoon but where does it start it starts right here be proud to be an American and what we always say we say faith family friends flag Freedom Forever God bless you guys I'm proud to be a state representative I'm proud to always be a Yarmouth police officer and I'm very honored and proud to represent our family as a gold star family from the town of Yarmouth thank [Applause] you so if you don't mind uh we would like to hey Eric for what he's done so big Nick Riders if you could come up for a second these people help put big Nicks ride together every year we honor 16 families that have lost someone from Cape Cod it's very hard but it's a labor of love so because of our Riders because of the doners we were able to raise $1 16,552 and77 cents to pay for this project so Eric come on [Applause] up I don't know if you can put this in the bank but uh I I love this guy he's the best always got surprises I um I'm really moved by all this I really appreciate it and again the uh the donations I don't remember what they told it up to but probably over $10,000 in product and labor um it it it's amazing and I really appreciate being a part of this thank you very much thank you all right I think it's time for Taps so could our performer please come forward no we stay here everybody veterans and big Nicks Riders you're welcome to stay up here Town Administrator okay come on over sir please so it is our honor to perform Taps and remember when we do Taps we Face the performer we stand and we put our hands over our hearts you only do that twice once is for the national anthem and the other time is Taps so ready if you could all please stand and we Face our performer and we salute [Music] two job beautiful amen come over here please what tell us your name jevie and your last name Pendleton all right and your dad and mom and family God bless you that's amazing that's America sir we give it back to you now thank you Steve thank you Steve that concludes our ceremony for this morning thank you very much and thank you very much to the zaros fund beautiful our honor thank you